


Being Consumed

by whilloywriter



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Conversations, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28435809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whilloywriter/pseuds/whilloywriter
Summary: Will and Hannibals first kiss after the fall in a dark, firelit room and all of the feelings around that.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Kudos: 49





	Being Consumed

Hannibal stopped. His eyes found Wills, a question in them. He was standing close, the space between them burning, one hand resting on Wills waist. “Do you think I would hurt you?” Hannibal’s voice was low and even. Will didn’t have to wonder- he knew he had in turn offended and amused the man. He scoffed, pulling away, leaving Hannibal's hand to drift alone in space before it returned to his side.

“I don’t think it, Hannibal. I know you couldn’t. But this...” He said, jaw tightening. He forced his shoulders to relax, adjusting as he placed his hands in his pockets, curling his fingers together into fists. “It feels wrong.” 

Hannibal didn’t say anything. Will was silent, stepping away to face the flames. They licked at the iron grate, wood crackling, burning from within. He was mesmerized by them, and in them, he saw passion. A kiss, hands. He cleared his throat. “It’s not that I don’t... ache,” He said, a twitch of amusement on his lips, faint as a memory. “It feels too vulnerable. Too pedestrian.” He lingered on the word, felt in his mouth. He struggled, as he so often did, to parse his own thoughts. He left that to Hannibal. 

“Not passionate enough?” Hannibal said, and Will felt him at his shoulder. He knew where his eyes were- on his throat, wandering to his jaw. Inspecting him. He felt it, despite the distance. And when he turned to look at him, he met his eyes, caught them from their wandering trail.

“Not violent enough.” 

Hannibal smiled, amused once more. “It is human to desire touch,” He stepped away, towards the leather couch that sat in the middle of the room. “Physical intimacy has many benefits, the least of which are emotional.” The light of the flames barely reached it, half consuming the man in shadows as he reclined into the cushions. Will luxuriated in watching him.

“We need to be touched. Even the most depraved.” Hannibal said, smoothing out the creases of his slacks as he crossed his legs. The dance was familiar. Hannibal, reclined, and Will, standing. A length apart, a distance that felt like no distance at all.

“It’s how we know we’re real.” He mused, turning his back on Hannibal, facing the flames once more. 

“Do you not feel real since the Dragon?” Hannibal countered. Though his voice was even, Will knew what he was searching for. What he was digging for in Wills mind. Regret. Resentment. There was none to be found.

He shrugged, stepping away from the flames as he busied his eyes, searching for something in the shadows of the room as he thought. “I’m more real than I’ve ever been.” He had struggled, since the fall, to know his place in the world. In this new world, with Hannibal. All of the killing, the running, the passion of the knife, it all felt so natural. Second nature to be wild and feral and covered in blood, partner to a monster. But still, something was out of place. A piece left behind. Itching behind his eyes.

His fingers found the spine of a book, running along the leatherbound journal. “It’s the small moments that feel unreal.” He mused. He and Hannibal were one, now. They had been inside each other for a long, long time. But Will had never been there in the morning, when Hannibal brushed his teeth, or put his socks on. Those small moments, when they talked about choice of soap. It felt alien. Like he was walking in a dream.

It amused him, to some degree. Before, the dreams were of violence. He was a visitor in the world of blood of bone, and it was surrounded by the fog of madness. The FBI, the murders. Hannibal. They were foreign and strange. And then, slowly, he changed. And the mundane became the maddening. 

He turned to Hannibal, whose eyes had never left him. He nodded in understanding. “When the polite is insufferable.” 

Will faced Hannibal, finger and thumb rubbing together as he stepped towards the couch, drawn there by some supernatural force. “There’s an itch...” He said, tilting his head. “In my skin. You are inside me, Hannibal. Every inch of me burns,” His voice was low, and he held Hannibal's eyes, dark and glinting in the low light of the room. “It burns with you and for you. It is roiling, and it is powerful, and it is passionate.”

“Violent.” Hannibal echoed.

Will stood above him. “And to kiss you?” He laughed, looking away, shattering the connection between them. “It seems...” He faded, the words lost in his breath. He looked to him again, searching him for understanding as he had so many times.

“Do I need to take out a knife each time I want to express how I feel about you?” Hannibal smiled, and Will laughed. He sat, and they were together, closer than they had been before. He turned, resting an arm on the back of the couch.

“I would prefer if you didn’t.” 

Hannibal leaned in. “There is room in our world for the human, just as we have made room for the inhuman.”

Will raised his eyebrows, surprised.

Hannibal looked away, fingers playing over his knee as he thought. “Hurt, betrayal, longing,” His eyes found Wills again. “Love. Mundane, in their own ways. Things that have found a place in my world. You found a way to touch me, just as you did to hurt me.” 

There was a pause. Will’s heart was suspended in it. Hannibal sighed. “If you feel discomfort, that is quite alright. I would be surprised if you didn’t. The road to where we are now has been a long and turbulent one.” 

“Yes, it has.” He took a breath, shaking his head. Shaking the memories from his mind, dislodging their claws in his chest. They didn’t talk of the past as often as they once had. A place in his own mind palace where he could not go. 

Their eyes met again. “I am satisfied with your company at my side and your partnership in my life, Will,” Hannibal said, his voice strong and even. Hiding so much beneath the surface. “I don’t need anything more.” 

“But do you want more?” Will challenged. He knew the answer. 

Hannibal paused, and then smiled. “I never thought I would be visited by love. I thought I was above anguish,” He looked away, and though his smile remained, it was changed. Will was captured by it. “But I find myself, in our company, reminded of all it is to be a man. Full of the desires a man is full of. I burn, as you so eloquently put it.” 

There was a moment of silence. The words were caught in the back of Wills throat. He pushed them out, his voice wavering. “Do you feel like you’ll be torn apart?” 

Hannibal simply looked at him. “We have torn each other apart.” 

They were quiet. And then they kissed. Will leaned in, one hand on Hannibal's thigh, the other on his cheek, pulling him inwards. He felt a fire in his chest, burning in his ears. He deepened the kiss, and thought of all the ones that ever came before. With Alana. With Molly. It was nothing next to the hunger in his throat now, the wild itch behind his eyes. He was gripped with a wild and uncontrollable fervor, threatening to never let him go. All he could think of was the frenzy of beating Randall Tier, the thrusting of the blade deeper into the Dragons stomach. The release of the butterfly.

When Hannibal pulled away, he leaned in, chasing him for just a moment before he leaned back. He released a breath, and pressed a finger to his lips. Blood came away on his fingers, and he raised his eyebrows, giving Hannibal a look of silent approval. He reclined, settling just as Hannibal stood. His fingers deftly brought his suit jacket back together, buttoning the undone collar of his shirt.

“And?” Hannibal asked.

“Mm?” Will looked at him, watching his shoulders, his back. Hannibal turned.

“Did that feel small?” 

Will shook his head, slow and precise. “No,” He said, before smiling. He found the same amusement dancing in the man's eyes. “It felt like being consumed.”


End file.
